A diary about a 20-something self-taught makeup artist from Puerto Rico. Find out what happens behind the scenes and all it takes to create that perfect makeup.

Monday, April 25, 2011

Mega Electronic Fest Makeup 2011

This was the toughest job I've done to date. I was contacted to do makeup on MEF (Mega Electronic Fest) just 3 days before the show. MEF is a 12-hour festival where DJs from all over the world came to play their music for their fans. I was told that I had to do makeup on 26 performers. As soon as I heard that I freaked out a little because I had called all the makeup artists I knew but none could do it on such short notice.

On Thursday I went to the wardrobe fitting and met with Rafi Mercado, the Director of H.O.M.E. (House Of Mercado Entertainment), his company that was hired by MEF to provide the dancers for the show. During the dress rehearsal I caught a glimpse of what the show was going to be like: lots of sequins, glitter, colors and just a lot of everything I loved. I sat down with the wardrobe stylist and Rafi and we brainstormed ideas. The dancers would be dressed as so many things: mermaids, lizards, tin creatures, devils, fire breathers, b-boys, b-girls among other things. After seeing all the costumes I realized I really, really, needed at least just 1 makeup artist assisting me because although out of the 26 performers a few of them were gonna do their own makeup, the rest of them had to not only have 1 makeup look, but 3 and some had even 6 because of all the costume changes. Add to that the fact that I had been hired to do makeup at a show that same day during the morning. My mind was in a frenzy, I couldn't come up with anything to match everyone and let alone multiply that by 4 or 6. When I got home I tried to wrap my brain around ideas, and only came up with 3 of the more than 26 looks.

Here's one of them:

(Before you say anything, know this: I did this at 2:00am, without any sleep and I only used coloring pencils. I don't have the actual MAC face chart paper so the eyeshadows don't run so smoothly on normal paper.) The mermaids started off as girls on skates, then they went to Mermaids and then they went back to mermaids. 3 changes, 3 looks.

On Friday I went shopping for supplies: glitter, lashes, eyeshadows, sponges, glue, sequins, etc. After that I went to the dress rehearsal and showed Rafi all the things I'd bought and the charts I had. He liked it all and he trusted me even though I was still very much freaking out. Then something amazing happened. I had asked on Facebook days before the show if any makeup artists could help me but as I said, they were all busy. This girl sent a friend request and I accepted her the day before not thinking much of it. That night, during the dress rehearsal she left me a link to her body painting pictures and my jaw dropped, she was amazing! I left her a comment to contact me as soon as possible and that same night we arranged for her to get to the show before me. My call for MEF was at 3:00pm but I had to be at the makeup show from 9:00am until 4:00pm. I sent Yary the face charts that I had drawn and told her to get creative but not too crazy because the makeup had to be simple/easy but creative, which in theory sounds simple but it is not. Rafi told us we have to be creative but not too out there, we didn't have time nor budget to do anything too elaborate.

My day started early on Saturday. I was at the Makeup show for Jesse's Girl Cosmetics at 9:00am, doing demonstrations on people that walked by, it was a lot of fun. I told Jesse about my situation and he was gracious enough to let me go early. I ran like the wind to get to MEF.

When I got there, Yary had already done one girl's makeup. She took from my face chart and added a little of her. From there we did all of the mermaids' makeup and a few others. In the end my freaking out was just me giving myself too much pressure. As it turned out between Yary and me we did about 12 dancers, which works out to 6 each, pretty easy if you ask me.

After their first costume change we did the scales on the girls and changed everyone else's makeup. Basically for the rest of the people who didn't have face charts we winged it and it worked out great, Rafi was really pleased with what Yary and I did.

(My makeup mess!)

(You can see me on the far left just catching a break while the dancers were on-stage)

By 10:00pm Yary had to leave so I was left alone with everyone. Thankfully though ,the major makeup and costume changes had already been done, so all I had to do for the rest of the night was retouch over and over again everyone's makeup. Here's some pictures of them performing.

At the end of the night Rafi asked us all, from dancers to crew members to go on-stage. Iwanted to stay behind because I was in no shape to be in front of thousands of people, I was exhausted and had paint everywhere, but still I had to do it. When we got on-stage we all formed a line across the stage while Benni Benassi played his set. Rafi went to every person on the stage, presented them to the crowd and gave them big hug thanking them.

If you look at the first picture below, you'll see my arm sticking out from behind the girl with the huge fan. I said hello to Rafi, stayed for maybe 5 minutes and then left. I stay behind the scenes, not on-stage with the performers ha ha.

I said that if I got through this event I could do anything and you know what? I can do anything. I did makeup for more than 16 hours; I survived this and actually had an amazing time. I would do it all over again in a heatbeat.